Stevie glanced at Warren and then chuckled.
“Me right about something geez, now even I think you’ve gone off the deep end”
“Yeah considering you also said spirits shouldn’t be able to appear corporeal, I’m taking things you’ve said with a grain of salt, fart-face”
“Hmm… well up until a few minutes ago you didn’t think I was really a ghost, the feelings mutual, colonel stink-bag.”
Warren went to hug his cousin then stopped, realizing.
“Yeah, well, looking corporeal, and being fully corporeal are two different things” Stevie's trademark grin slowly returned as their conversation continued.
Then as Warren spoke both their expressions shifted back to being serious. Mostly due to the gruesomeness of what else they were to talk about.
Warren tried to look Stevie in the eyes but failed, he turned his head in the opposite direction and picked at the zits on his face, a nervous habit.
“So not that I’m not stoked see you’re well-ish, but h-how did it happen” Warren was practically whispering by this point, he hadn’t really wanted to ask but felt he had to.
“Which part, the dying, the finding someone who might listen, or the coming back process overall?” Stevie's eyes sharpened as they focused in on Warren.
Sheepishly Warren answered, “The first one, I think”.
“I wish I knew that myself” Stevie stood up a bit straighter almost flawlessly now compared to where he started.
“So you can’t remember anything?’
“It’s what I said loser”
“Yeah well, dork, how is that possible”
“Blackout, maybe, the subconscious does try to protect us from a traumatic experience, and well…” He paused
He didn’t even have to finish and Warren knew what he meant immediately. Dying couldn’t have been an easy thing.
“Anyways, I was on my way out to get myself some fast food, and some drinks, and then, blackness”
“You wouldn’t be the first mugging gone wrong in this place” Warren testified.
“Yeah maybe, but, there's a sinister feeling I can’t shake” Stevie looked even paler for a second if that was possible even.
“Sinister, from a failed mugging, no couldn’t be” Warren spouted to which Stevie stuck out a middle finger.
“Anyways, I see you’ve been a wreck without me, and who can blame you, I am pretty cool, If I do say so” Stevie's smirk returned as he jokingly boasted.
“You have any idea how true that is, then again neither did I when we knew each other back in college, and prior” Warren answered honestly.
Stevie looked genuinely touched, as much as a ghost could anyways.
There was another short silence then…
Warren studied Stevie's face as if double-checking for confirmation that he was indeed there.
“Why did that photo give me ghost chills, why did you come back now, why hasn’t this happened to people before, so many unanswered questions,” Warren asked afraid of the answer to those questions. Afraid as Warren might have been and as Stevie definitely was afraid of them he knew he needed answers.
“The first one is probably spirit’s tendency to attach to things or people that might have been important to them in life” Stevie speculated.
‘As for the rest I guess I don’t know anything in that area” Stevie looked worried
“What is it?” Warren inquired.
“What if I’m the only one, what do you think people’s reactions are gonna be to something like this?”
“I don’t have the answers either, you know.” Stevie rolled his eyes at Warren’s response.
“Maybe You don’t have the answers, but there is someone else who might.” Warren looked up baffled, who could possibly… Then he realized and laughed.
“If you think she has any more than I do, then you're making a pretty big reach” Warren snorted.
“Selene is a biologist studying aliens, sure, but who's to say she doesn’t know a little about ghost stories from those cultures as well.” Stevie looked desperate so…
Warren conceded “Alright, and…”
“And, she might know something useful from her studies that could help us.” He paused, “It could help me, Warren.”
Warren still looked torn.
“You keep saying what a cool guy I am, and your thoughts were filled with guilt, so prove this isn’t just a worthless pity party, and help me, dude” Stevie was quivering with anger by the time he himself had finished speaking.
Warren stared as if to say you’ve been reading my thoughts, but then he just looked down. Then raising his head back up, he looked at Stevie and clapped.
“Alright so that’s settled then, to Selenes’s place we go”

“Warren, you okay buckaroo?” Selene asked worriedly when she answered the door.
Stevie materialized behind him making Selene practically jump out of her skin.
“Is it really you Speedy Stevie?” She looked at Warren then back to Stevie then back again.
“Ghost warts, and all my dear cousin” Stevie grinned the widest grin of anyone there as he joked, a sure sign that it was him.
She looked at him confused.
“Ghost, Stevie, are you….?”


Stevie and Warren had finished explaining everything over to Selene around roughly 10 pm. By the time the two young men had finished, Selene was crying. Warren handed her a tissue box that rested on her coffee table. Eventually, when she had stopped crying, Selene spoke.
“Okay so I don’t have a lot of info about ghosts, but I have heard whispers from the scientists in my community, tho honestly who knows where they get their info from.”
“There’s apparently this thing called the I.C.O., or intergalactic Christian organization. Supposedly they handle unusual alien and human cases, such as ghosts, monsters, and other unusual things,” she paused realizing what she had said.
“Not that you’re unusual, Stevie” Stevie shrugged while looking as if he didn’t care about being called unusual.
“You are remarkably chill for someone who became a full-on ghost” Selene pointed out to Stevie who shrugged yet again.
“I got all my anger out with Warren here,” Stevie said.
As Warren scowled, Selene laughed “You two always were more honest with each other than with me.”
“There is such a thing as being too honest, though isn’t there.” Warren honestly hated the bluntness sometimes.
But, as Warren looked around the room he realized how much he had missed this. It had been a long time since the three of them had been in the same room together like this. 3 whole years since that time, since the time Warren had finally officially become himself, since Stevie had started college then disappeared completely and totally off the face of the earth. Now here he was. There they were all together, again.
He looked over at Stevie ghostly standing, but standing by him. Then Selene sitting with a small smile across from the two.
“So what do we do, go marching into the I.C.O., and demand they help me.” Stevie snarked.
“It’s a little more complicated than that, most ghosts aren’t welcome, very few exceptions” Selene explained before the two young men could get any wrong ideas.
“And, I can get Warren in, but he has to be very careful, about what he says, they’re touchy about anyone who wants to actively help ghosts” Selene looked at Warren sternly as if to say don't screw up.
Warren ran his fingers through his red-orange hair. Then stressed and got ready to ask...
Stevie beat him to the punch “ Then why are we trusting these yahoos with my future, again?”
“Because they’re the only group that knows about this stuff, other than us, fully, and truthfully” Selene stated placidly.
Warren and Stevie reluctantly agreed to Warren going to the I.C.O, and Selene over the next few days started preparing her younger brother for anything they might say or do to get him to stop trying to help Stevie.
Then it was time Warren went to the location he had been told, and steadied himself for the meeting with the I.C.O., as he stepped through the doors he was ready for anything.

Warren walked into the door of Selene’s home, to see Stevie and Selene’s hopeful faces.
“It was a bust,” he said dejectedly, as he huffed down on the sofa.
“I knew, I should have gone, but I thought since you were closer with Stevie, you might have a better chance at convincing them to help us out,” Selene said huffily.
“Well they clocked me as trans due to my height, so I don’t think that was ever happening” Warren admitted sheepishly.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of, man, bigots will almost always be bigots, unfortunate that they’re the ones holding our future in their hands, though”
“That isn’t anything new either” Warren quipped, and Selene and Stevie both laughed and nodded, they knew that truth better than anyone as well. They were all a part of the lgbtq+ community after all.
“All right, so I’m gonna go get the snacks Rainey left before they left for their work trip, and we’ll figure this out” Warren chirped Stevie grimaced wondering how anyone could be away from their partner as long Rainey and Selene were between each of their work trips. Then winced even more once he realized about his own partner or he guessed former partner at this point. He wondered for a second about Jeffrey for a second but stopped himself knowing there was no point in thinking about his now ex-boyfriend. No point in making himself sadder that was.
Instead, he asked the one burning question he had since coming back but was too afraid to ask. He knew by the rules of the state that he was declared legally dead at this point. “ What about my parents, were they at the funeral, how bad was it” Stevie wasn’t even sure he wanted the answer. They were almost as bad as Warren and Selene’s parents, about him being lgbtq+.
Selene looked down, almost afraid of the answer herself. “Your mom tried to tell Jeffrey off for even being there, and your dad was on a work trip, very important he assured us, but still….” she started off.
“Don’t say they meant well, they probably ruined their own son’s funeral, and they probably don’t even care enough to admit it.” Stevie was almost red-faced. Selene couldn’t tell he looked too pale to really tell a noticeable change.
Warren came in and looked at Stevie’s expression and said “Oops you said there were drinks right, I should go get those”
As Warren awkwardly slid out of the room and back into the kitchen, Selene gave Stevie a sad look.
“They do care about you,” Selene assured him.
“So they say” But he wasn’t so sure that Selene was wrong. He was just mad at his parents, he knew that deep down. Maybe she was right, but he wasn’t about to concede to that truth.
“Your mom even told everyone what a promising young man you were” Selene was obviously trying to play peacemaker, but honestly he wished she’d just stop. It wasn’t gonna change anything, and it really couldn’t change everything that had happened to him, or his parent's reactions.
So instead Stevie just snarked “I guess that makes me the ghost of a promising young man, now.”
Warren came back into the room, and sensing Stevie’s tone, Selene backed off of Stevie.
"You know his mom still called him his old name,” Warren added, obviously as salty as Stevie was about these sorts of things. Stevie had changed it to honor Warren’s courage during his coming out and to prove to everyone that names while important were ultimately a matter of multiple choices anyways. Not just on the parents' part, although yeah it’s that too, but if they want to change it for whatever reasons, it would be perfectly acceptable for the progeny to make choices as well. That seemed to be controversial for Stevie’s parents, however.
“Yeah, well the promising young man, they spoke so highly of, existed only in their dreams in the first place then.”
“Agreed,” said Warren going to fist bump Stevie, then remembering he sheepishly pulled back.
“Hey, that gives me an idea, where did we all always dream of going as kids, before it became kind of a mess?” Warren started excitedly
“Our favorite book universe?” Selene asked jokingly.
“Andromeda , a.k.a. the star of galaxies, a.k.a. the mystical zone, a.k.a….” He sounded super excited until…
“ Warren, you know it’s not polite to call it a mess.” Selene was always desperate to defend things, and people that she felt were unfairly targeted, but…
“Right, sorry, sometimes I forget how much they’ve gone through, because of us” Warren corrected quickly. She always defended those she felt were unfairly targeted, but Warren respected that trait for two reasons. A. It’s what allowed her to open up about gender, and sexuality, and take a chance for both herself and her younger brother. B. Even if that hadn’t been true, how many other lives had she saved by doing that when few to none like her would have? Warren always gave himself an out, because he was always too afraid to stand up and stand with her in a lot of ways outside of lgbtq+ issues. He didn’t know why that was.
It finally occurred to him that no one had talked for a solid two minutes. They had all paused to reflect on some things he guessed.
“So, Andromeda, huh” Stevie introspected after a few minutes, “ What about it”.
“I think we can go there, to get the help we need, they’re hip with this stuff right,”
Warren started.
“Warren” Selene warned him.
“I know, I know, stereotypes, but the point stands, right? Maybe someone there knows something about the ghost phenomenon.”
“You mean how it works, and why it happens, or what happens if anything after becoming a ghost,” Stevie asked.
“Yeah at the very least it would be nice to know that, right” Warren shot back.
As Stevie mulled this over Selene still stared skeptical.
“Look I wish we had a better plan, I do, but right now this is all we have, sis” Warren was fired up again with a hope in his eyes Selene hadn’t seen since…
She couldn’t rightfully turn him down knowing that.
"Alright, you have a way for us to get there Warren Peace,” she was smiling and had even pulled out the nickname that she had given him, he knew she was in.
“I’ve thought of a couple of dozen ways,” he smirked and said back.